NOW TO VIEW MY JANUARY POSTS YOU WILL HAVE TO CLICK ON "JANUARY" SO THOSE POSTS WILL BE DISPLAYED.
TO VIEW PREVIOUS POSTINGS USE THE "BLOG ARCHIVE" UNDER OUR PHOTO ON THE RIGHT. THEN CLICK ON THE DAY OR DAYS YOU MISSED. ALSO CLICKING ON THE PHOTOS WILL ENLARGE THEM. I RECOMMEND THAT.
Our position today is docked at Philipsburg on St Maarten. It is mostly sunny and 84 degrees with a pretty strong wind.
ST MAARTEN BACKGROUND INFO:
St Maarten is part of the Leeward islands in the northeast Caribbean Sea. The island is divided about 60/40 by the countries of France and the Netherlands. The larger part is French but the population is basically equal and total population of the island is 78,000. We will be docking in Philipsburg which is on the Dutch side. The island lies in the hurricane zone and in 2017 hurricane Emma caused significant damage to the tune of $3 billion.
Tourism is the island’s main industry with around 1 million visitors annually. 85% of the workforce works in tourism. The US dollar is accepted in most stores on the island.
LAST NIGHT:
We enjoyed very much another nice dinner with Joan & Charlie Davis (on left) and Marcia Rector. Always great conversation shared by all.
Rebecca's entree was grilled tiger prawns with garlic & ginger and stir fried vegetables on egg noodles.
I chose the pan-seared duck margret with a blackberry sauce. In between the pieces of duck was a herb beignet. I added a baked potato and some buttered veggies.
This dessert was a layered chocolate & coconut cake. Very rich so could not eat much of it.
After we had finished dinner Jason Montague, President and CEO of Regent Cruises, stopped by our table to say hi. Rebecca I will be having dinner with Jason tomorrow evening in Prime 7.
Mark Palmer, the comedian, was terrible. Unfortunately, we were sitting on the second row so could not escape.
TODAY:
My tour for today, "Historical St Maarten by Trolley Train", was scheduled to depart the ship at 10:15 this morning. I was a good boy and went down to get Rebecca some strong coffee at the Coffee Connection at 7:30. She had ordered her breakfast for 8am as usual. I went to the gym and did my hour on the treadmill and was back and showered by 9am. Rebecca was working out by then so I went up to La Veranda and had this very good omelette.
There are lots of shops just as we walked off the pier. We heard that the crew will be allowed off the ship at 3pm today to just walk around in this area. It is the first time the crew will have been allowed off the ship since they started their contract. We are so happy for them. More baby steps for the ship to get back to normal.
This is the trolley. Marcia and I sat on the very back row.
We did not read the tour description close enough and failed to see there would be a 10 (turned into 20) minute stop at a cheese shop. No photos of it as I was not happy and told the guide so. The trolley parked downwind from a small, crummy little beach. The wind was howling and we got sand blasted waiting for the damn train driver to stop talking. My ears are full of sand now so another shower later after publishing this.
Did get a photo of this lovely flower.
Statues remembering the early days of the island when exporting salt was the main economy driver.
You know who this is!!
Local crafts market
A school
Rooster and his 3 wives walking down the street. Two had turned the corner.
Another school with kids playing and waving at us.
Old court house in middle of town. They dumped us off here to shop for 35 minutes (turned into 45). You can imagine how excited I was about this!!!
A block away was a beach. For $20 you have 2 chairs, 2 drinks, & internet.
From beach looking back toward Court House. Lots of men (like these two in blue shirts) trying to sell tours.
Looking back towards the cruise ships.
The beach was sandy but there were some shells also.
Bars along the beach
Finally back on the ship at 12:30. Found this leftover from this morning's crew emergency drill.
The RCL Grandeur of the Seas is docked at the pier next to ours. This taken from our balcony. Capacity is 2440 passengers.
This is Celebrity Cruises, Edge. Christened in 2018 it has a capacity of 2900 passengers. It shares our pier which is on the port side (we are on starboard side)
Name of the yacht is "Kismet". The yacht costs $200 million and the owner is a Pakistani-American billionaire. He also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL football team. I think Jerry Jones' yacht costs more than this one. In the background is downtown Philipsburg.
Two photos from deck 12 of the cruise terminal shopping area.
We will be returning to St Maarten on March 11th. Last evening we received "another" change to our Caribbean world cruise itinerary for the next segment. Still same ports in the Western Caribbean and eastern Central America but Easter Caribbean (where we have been cruising on this segment) has changes. We now have overnights in four ports: Cartagena, Curacao, Barbados, and Grenada. Now will not be stopping in Aruba and Bonaire as previously planned. It's all fine with us!
Just the two of us for dinner tonight. We have not decided whether we will dine in Compass Rose or go up to Sette Mari. Guess we will decide it over 6pm drinks in the Mariner Lounge. We definitely will be going to see the production cast show, "Blazing Boots". We saw the show last segment and it is amazing.
We will be sailing at 4pm which is earlier than normal as we have a long way to go before arriving in Miami on Sunday.
